Before Max had arrived at the bidding he had predicted that the only option Karen would feel like she had left was to sell the business, he had guessed this when she had asked the Billion Bloodline group for help.
Because it went to show how desperate of a situation she felt like she was in.
When someone like Karen, a Stern, was asking for outside help, that meant she had already exhausted what she believed were her own options. Pride alone would have stopped most of them from reaching out.
There was an added pressure to the Stern family. Most people would be pleased with a fortune being handed to them, even if it was a fraction of a giant size.
To live comfortably. To never worry again. That was enough for most.
She had started her business, and selling the department store, Karen could continue to live the rest of her life maybe opening up a smaller shop and never having to worry about money again.
She could have stepped away.
She could have walked away with hundreds of millions and still lived better than ninety percent of the population.
Yet, it appeared as if all members of the Stern family were conditioned into thinking that, being the heir was most important. That it was a contest and it was an all or nothing competition for them.
It wasn’t about comfort.
It was about status.
It was about proving something.
She needed a mass amount of money to start again if possible and losing it all to trying to save the department store clearly wasn’t an option. So when it was announced that the Department store was being sold, Max had a meeting in place with Warma to try and discuss a plan for it all.
The meeting had been private. Quiet. Calculated.
"So what do you think, about me purchasing the Department store?" Max asked.
Warma was looking over at his notes as he had been listening intently to everything Max had to say.
He had written down projections. Purchase cost. Estimated resale value. Risk factors. Reputation impact.
"Honestly I have to say, I’m impressed this is a pretty good plan." Warma replied. "It’s not risky because even if you don’t sell it back to Karen, you can always sell it to a competitor, even if it’s not at the past market price because of the issues, you could at least double your money easy."
The numbers made sense.
Too much sense.
Honestly Warma was a little too frightened about how well the plan was. There were times where he was plenty surprised by the amount of business acumen Max had, and business acumen might not even be the right word.
Because what was happening here was quite scummy.
It was opportunistic.
It was taking advantage of pressure.
Although he agreed it was a good plan, whether it was a just thing to do or not was different. In the end though Warma had always just put it down to who he was since after all he was a member of the Stern family.
And Sterns didn’t survive by being soft.
"The main issue you’ll have though is the Gilt Rats." Warma said. "They’re the ones that are threatening all the other potential buyers, so it’s not as if you can just decide to sell it straight after buying it."
That was the true complication.
It wasn’t just a financial play.
It was a power play.
Max agreed, he already had decided that a fight with the Gilt Rats was unavoidable, so he might as well have taken the chance to make as much money as possible while doing so, and this chance was just too good to take up.
If conflict was coming either way, then he would choose the battlefield.
Expanding his power greatly, the major issue though, was the money spent. Max had only just gotten his money nicely above a Billion and he was feeling the benefits of its new found power.
Liquidity meant leverage.
Leverage meant influence.
Influence meant protection.
They were unsure if they could still go up against the Black Hounds alone, never mind the Gilt Rats and the Black Hounds together so the group needed more power not less.
Money wasn’t just profit.
It was ammunition.
So after the purchase, the group would be in quite a weakened state.
Three hundred and fifty million was not a small dent. It was a massive shift in available resources.
"There is one thing, I could try to sell it back to her straight away." Max said.
"Straight away?" Warma replied as if the idea was far fetched. He could already imagine how filled she would be with anger when her business was taken away from her.
The image of Karen’s expression alone made it seem unrealistic.
"She will want the building, the issue is getting rid of the Gilt Rats, and if we promise to get rid of her problems, she will buy the building back, even at Market price. I’ve had a few run in’s with her before I’ve seen what type of person she is... this is the only thing she really has left."
Max wasn’t guessing.
He was calculating based on character.
It wasn’t just what Max had seen, Max had actually spoken to Chad on quite a few occasions to confirm this the department store was second to pleasing her father.
For Karen, the store wasn’t just business.
It was proof.
All the Stern’s started the same way, but at some point they would realise they weren’t cut out at being the heir. This was what had happened to Chad and allowed him to just spend his money freely.
He had stepped away from the race.
He had accepted his place.
When Karen realised that she no longer had her Grandfather’s favour and there was no chance left for her. She would want the next most precious thing her department store, and people only realised what they lost until they lost it.
Losing it would make it worth more to her than ever before.
"As long as we promise to get rid of the Gilt Rats in some way I’m sure she’ll buy it back, but I know the state of her finances, she doesn’t have enough, and she’ll need to borrow some money."